


Roses and Rookwoods

by hoc_voluerunt



Category: The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbending, Genderswap, Implied Relationships, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7526569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoc_voluerunt/pseuds/hoc_voluerunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basil finds something to draw, and Harriet is only ten minutes late for coffee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses and Rookwoods

**Author's Note:**

> No, I have entirely no shame. Technically this is fic of my own stage adaptation of the text, in which Harry is Lady Harriet Wotton and she is most definitely dating a violin teacher named Arabella. It was essentially written on a dare, but I'm kind of fond of it and I have a lot of feelings sometimes. I refuse to apologise.

            It was seven o’clock in the morning, and there was a note of panic in Basil Hallward’s voice.

            “Mary,” he called, in tremulous tones, “what are these?”

            Of course, Basil Hallward sounding panicked at seven in the morning was not a terribly unusual occurrence. All that really needed to be determined was his location, and his state of dress; in this instance, his meagrely-furnished sitting room, and in his tattered nightgown, robe, and slippers. Mary poked her head in from the hallway, still with one foot on the kitchen opposite.

            “What are what, sir?” she asked, unfazed.

            “These?” Basil said, pointing with one outstretched arm at a crystal vase on the mantelpiece, in which stood a modest bunch of creamy, pink-and-white roses in various states of bloom. Mary’s expression – hardly stern already – softened.

            “The bush was almost straining under the weight of them,” she said, stepping fully into the room. “I trimmed them off when I was doing the watering, thought they’d brighten up the house for a few days.” As she spoke, Basil crossed the room with small, shuffling steps, slippers flapping at his heels. “You needn’t fear,” Mary finished, “the garden isn’t empty without them.” She smiled, then, as an afterthought, added: “Sir.”

            Basil, by then, had reached the hearth, and was stroking one gentle finger against a half-closed rosebud, pressing up the smooth line of its folded petals and pushing it closer to its fellows in the vase. When he reached the petals’ fine edges, he drew back his hand by a fraction of an inch, so the rose fell back to where Mary had arranged it. There was an expression in his lips, as they leaned into a delicate shape, the suggestion of an upturn at their heart. His liquid eyes were elsewhere.

            “Thank you, Mary,” he finally said, and she let out a silent sigh of relief, her expression losing some of its encroaching tightness.

            “Shall I bring in your breakfast?” she said, conciliatory and plain.

            “Just tea this morning, thank you,” Basil replied, a little absently. “Have you eaten?”

            “Not yet.”

            A small frown creased Basil’s brow.

            “Eat whatever you made for me,” he said, with as much admonishment as he was capable of mustering, which was frightfully little. “But some tea and honey would be nice. Then I’d like to see what you’ve done with the rose bushes.”

            “Will you be dressing this morning?” Mary asked, as Basil turned to the bookshelf and started to rummage in amongst the stacks of books, folders, papers, and photographs kept there.

            “I doubt it,” he muttered. “Can you see a pencil anywhere? Oh –” He emerged with a pocket-sized sketchbook in one hand and a dirt-stained pencil in the other, and perched himself on the edge of the worn, green armchair by the hearth. “Why?”

            Mary opened her mouth, at a momentary loss. “It’s only,” she began, hesitating over the news and wondering whether Hallward really didn’t remember. “Lady Wotton was to come around this morning? You agreed to have coffee at nine.”

            “Which means she won’t be over until at least nine-thirty,” Basil started, darting pencil at paper, but Mary cut him off.

            “I know that,” she said, “but she’ll still be over. Won’t you want to dress?”

            “Harriet won’t mind…” Basil mumbled, leaning closer to the page. “Where are my charcoals?”

            “In the studio,” said Mary. “Do you want me to bring your tea there?”

            Basil looked up at her, with the expression of a startled deer. “My what?” he said, before remembrance struck. “Oh. No, thank you, here will do.”

            “Very well, then.”

            As she left for the kitchen, Mary hid a smile while Basil sketched on, altogether oblivious. He remained in that position for some minutes, bent over his sketchbook, as his hand flicked and smoothed across the page, inscribing line upon line in every square inch. Some came together to form coherent pictures of half-blooming rosebuds or vases which made sweeping lines out of fragmented chunks of glass; but most of the sketches were mere abstracts, the curl of a petal drawn out to its utmost, or one leaf’s curve repeated over and over until it became both perfect and meaningless. He stayed like that while Mary laid out the tea things on a little table next to his chair, and while she ate her breakfast, until, a half-hour later, she returned and tutted about the tea going cold, and poured him a cup herself.

            Basil drank the cup in the gulps, muttered something in gratitude, and went back to his drawing.

            By the time Lady Harriet walked through his door, resplendent and grinning at Mary, a picture in overflowing layers of emerald silk, Basil had moved on to his studio, and was sat at an angled drawing desk in a patch of sunlight filtered through the garden, with the sleeves of his nightgown and robe bunched up at his elbows to reveal hands and wrists smudged all over with pastels of cream, white, pink, and red. Mary showed Harriet through the house and back to the studio before bowing out of the way to catch an afternoon nap while the two were busy with themselves.

            “Let me guess,” Harriet drawled, slipping out of her gloves – “those roses in the sitting room?”

            “There’s something about them…” Basil started, but he never finished the sentence, absorbed in his work as Harriet continued undressing, unpinning and sweeping off her hat – a peaked extravagance of feathers and elegantly-looped ribbon – in a performance for no one but herself. She dabbed at the curls of hair behind her ear, then plucked up the back of a chair and pulled it across the floor to Basil’s desk.

            “I was promised coffee,” she said, light-heartedly pointed, as she watched Basil define the dark pink edges of a rose in full bloom.

            “And I was promised nine o’clock,” Basil returned, automatically. Harriet smiled at him sidelong.

            “Pray tell me how late I am, then,” she teased, “and I promise I’ll make it up to you next time.”

            Basil remained silent as he drew. With obvious movements, Harriet plucked at the little gold watch pinned to her waist, examined its face, then replaced it as she moved around to the front of the chair and dropped into it, crossing one leg over the other and leaning back into the cushions.

            “You’re out of luck, dear Basil,” she said, tilting her head at him. “It’s only ten past nine.”

            Basil sighed at his drawing. “You astound me,” he said, followed by, “And how is Arabella?”

            “You actually know what day of the week it is,” Harriet cried, “I’m shocked!”

            “She always gives morning lessons on Tuesdays,” Basil said. “And don’t sell me short like that.”

            “Bella is absolutely wonderful,” Harriet answered at last. “By which I of course mean she’s done nothing but complain about that awful Rookwood boy for two weeks and he’s her first pupil today. Poor thing. The Rookwoods have so very many advantages, it’s a shame they’ve all chosen such pedestrian vices. Whoever heard of an eight-year-old boy who really _does_ chase cockroaches for fun? If one must take inspiration from periodicals, they might at least focus on the interesting ones.”

            “Don’t talk as if you don’t read periodicals, Harriet,” Basil huffed. “I’m sure you’d just prefer there to be a stolen tiara or a – severed ear or something in the family.”

            Harriet chuckled. “Please, Basil,” she said, “I’m not the one who wore a black armband all of last December. That detective was _your_ vice, not mine.”

            “Then what are first editions of the novels doing on your shelf?” Basil asked, in an arched tone. Harriet flicked her fingers in dismissal.

            “Kept for when Gwendolen’s children visit,” she said.

            “And the book of stories?” Basil countered.

            “An unfashionable gift from that awful man at the club who was trying to woo me.”

            “And every copy of the _Strand_ from last year?”

            “I’m waiting for the collecti—” She cut herself off with a narrow, smirking expression at her friend. “And here I thought all painters had no interest in the written arts.”

            Basil remained solemn and unchanging, except for the extra lightness to his eyes, and a certain straightening of his shoulders.

            “I pay attention to what you read, Harriet,” he said, “that shouldn’t be a surprise.”

            “Perhaps if you’d ever engaged in a single conversation outside of this studio,” Harriet replied, “you’d understand my shock.”

            Basil shrugged. “I only _care_ about you,” he said, inciting another chuckle.

            “Dear Basil, you really mustn’t say things like that,” Harriet laughed. “You’re the final bastion of defence between me and a head so big I have to replace all my hats – and they are very lovely hats.”

            “It has nothing to do with your self-importance,” Basil grumbled, as he reached blindly for a stick of moss-green and started on a thorny rose-stem. Harriet wrinkled her nose.

            “You know how I feel about sentiment, Basil.”

            “You refuse to admit how much you like it?”

            “Precisely,” she chirped. “I must keep some secrets, or all my admirers would become tired of me, and my social enemies stop fighting with me. And then where would be the point in life?”

            Basil had no coherent response to that. He rubbed at his nose – streaking it with a shock of pink and white – and remained focused on his art.

            “All you talk is nonsense,” he finally muttered. Harriet softened at that, lending him a sweet, slightly pitying expression he didn’t see.

            “I’m glad you bought the dictionary, then,” she said.


End file.
